


Down the Rabbit Hole

by lady_wordsmith



Series: Memories (Bucky/Reader) [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Ambiguity, Ambiguous/Open Ending, F/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Non-Linear Narrative, Past Relationship(s), Reader-Insert, Repetitious phrases, Romance, Something is seriously wrong, The Author Regrets Nothing, look at all these chekov's guns, mindfuckery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 01:09:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6174148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_wordsmith/pseuds/lady_wordsmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snippets. Fragments. Nothing makes sense.</p>
<p>(Or: Something completely different as we shift to the Reader Character and get the feel there's several levels of mindfuckery afoot in a narrative that's more than a little fragmented).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Down the Rabbit Hole

**Author's Note:**

> I swear to god this will start making sense within the next couple parts.

“Then let’s begin.”

Those words are enough.

> _“Are you sure this will work? I mean, I know I can do it, but are you sure it’ll **work**?”_
> 
> _“Mostly.”_
> 
> _“…I don’t know if I can do this, not to you. Isn’t it-“_
> 
> _“It’s nothing like that. I promise. It’s different.”_
> 
> _“How? It’s just the same, and I don’t know if I can do that to you. I’m not them.”_
> 
> _“Of course not. It’s you. And me.” His hand in yours, squeezing. The metal feels cold, but comforting._
> 
> _“How does that change anything?”_
> 
> _“Just trust me. I trust **you**.”_
> 
> _“I do trust you, James… Bucky. You’re the only one I can trust.”_
> 
> _“Then trust me **now** , sweetheart.”_

“You never did tell me about Europe,” your cousin Hayden says to you one morning. It’s you and her and Lane, having Sunday brunch like when you all were kids. Berry turnovers and pancakes and double-smoked bacon with eggs and coffee.

You laugh as you take a sip of coffee. Europe had been the destination of your quarter-life crisis a few years ago. Pressure from finals and graduation and impending student loans. It had all been very quick- just a duffel bag and a ride to the airport and a ticket to Italy before you knew it. How you had been able to spend almost a year traveling with so little planning was always a mystery to everyone. They hadn’t even known. It was only when you came back to Boston you learned about the missing person’s report.

The follies of youth, you guess.

“It was… It was Europe, y’know? Art and culture and shit.” You pause thoughtfully over your coffee. “Lots of walking.”

“Tell me about Giamo again.” Hayden says, which makes Lane groan.

“Please don’t,” he begs you. “Hearing about some guy in Italy defiling one of my baby cousins gives me heartburn.”

“Oh, Lane, he followed me around Europe and showed me the sights. Defiling me was the least he could do.” You joke, and Hayden laughs while Lane throws a piece of bacon at you, which you deftly catch and pop into your mouth.

Lane didn’t need to know that you and Giamo had done just about everything but the big event, and that your virginity was still mostly intact. It was fun to see what colors you could make your cousin turn.

You take a break from eating to read the Sunday paper. As you move the paper, you see something fall to the ground. You reach down to pick it up. It’s a flash drive, in the shape of a branch, with a large ladybug resting on the branch. You hold it up for your cousins.

“One of yours?” you ask them, and before you can even finish the sentence, Hayden is practically ripping it out of your hands.

“Sorry,” she apologizes, as you rub your hand where she had grabbed it. “Just an important project for grad school.”

“Right.” You say, nodding and reaching for the paper again.

You can understand that. You were the same way about school things.

 

> _“Doll, we don’t have a choice-“_
> 
> _“They’re almost here. I know.”_
> 
> _“A day. Maybe two.”_
> 
> _Hands. Bodies pulled close._
> 
> _“It’s either this, or we die, isn’t it?”_
> 
> _“…Yeah. Or worse.”_
> 
> _You know what he’s thinking, about the things that are worse than death._
> 
> _“Okay.”_
> 
> _“Okay?”_
> 
> _“I’ll do it. To both of us.”_

 

“Then let’s begin.”

It’s bright. Shining and moving, just slightly. You’re vaguely aware of a sound in your periphery, but the bright light has all your attention.

It’s heavy and it feels like floating, all at once. A lot of times it’s the light. Sometimes it’s something else moving. Sometimes it’s just a voice.

And then it’s like a light shutting off somewhere in your mind and a light coming on somewhere else. Sometimes they try and scratch at the dam you built in that secret part of your brain, but it holds strong. It’ll only break when it’s right. When it’s time. Until then, it’ll hold.

You made sure of that.

 

> _“You don’t have-“_
> 
> _“I do. We can’t take chances.”_
> 
> _“But how-“_
> 
> _“There’s a way. Don’t worry about me.”_
> 
> _A watery smile from you to him. He hesitates, and then kisses you fiercely, like you’re oxygen and his lungs are starved for air._
> 
> _When you part and catch your breath, he nods._

 

Your eyes flutter open. You sit up on the couch and look over to your left. Hayden is sitting on an armchair slightly above your head. She looks at you, her expression concerned. She’s leaning forward.

“Is everything all right?” she asks. “You just… shot up suddenly.”

“I must have dozed off.” You tell her, trying to remember what you were doing before. You don’t remember lying on the couch. You don’t remember just shooting upright a second ago, either. You thought you moved a little slower than that, like a cat coming back to itself after a nap. You remember…

It doesn’t matter. It never does.

“I was dreaming, I think.” You tell Hayden.

“Want to talk about it?” she asks, reclining back in her chair.

It’s on the tip of your tongue to say yes, but your mouth can’t seem to say it. You’ve trusted your cousin your entire lives. You can certainly tell her about weird dreams.

“No.” you say, the words flowing without thought. “Just a dream.”

Hayden doesn’t look like she believes you, but you find that you don’t care.

 

> _“How does it work?”_
> 
> _“It just does. The mind’s funny that way.”_
> 
> _“How… How do we undo it? After?”_
> 
> _“When it’s time. Only when it’s time. **We** don’t have to do anything. It’ll just happen. Slowly, just in case.”_
> 
> _“For me, right? What about you?”_
> 
> _“You don’t have to worry about that, either, because you’ll know.”_
> 
> _“I hate riddles, doll.”_
> 
> _“You came for me once, right? Before everything?”_
> 
> _He nods, remembering the way he pulled you from your cell in the compound without as much as a thought._
> 
> _“You’ll find me again, Bucky.”_
> 
> _He snorts._
> 
> _“Don’t give me that corny romance shit.”_
> 
> _“I’m not. You **will** find me again.”_

 

Explosions. Fire. Blood. Your shoulder feels like hell from the bullet graze, but you’ll deal with that later. You have to get the information back to the others.

You remember coming to, being given your task. You only remember your tasks. Nothing else. They give you a task, and you complete it and it’s over and then you lay in wait until the next one.

You had slipped the flash drive, the one in the shape of a ladybug on a branch, deep into your cleavage. Your bra had a pocket, somewhere between the cups, but you can’t be sure you had managed to put the drive there. It doesn’t matter much. It’s secure enough, for now.

You transmit a quick communiqué to Lane. He tells you to get to the extraction point. You don’t need to be told twice.

Lane pulls you inside the small plane as he’s nodding and yelling something to Deron, the pilot. The plane takes off without a hitch, and you take your seat with a sigh.

Hayden is sitting across from you. She nods, and you know it’s time. You relax almost instantly, and you’re faintly aware of the flash drive being extracted and handed over before you close your eyes.

“Then let’s begin.”

> _His forehead’s against yours, his tears mingling together with yours on your face_. _You want to see his eyes, the slate gray-blue that reminds you of chills and snow. The color’s cold but the eyes are warm. But he keeps them closed, his forehead against yours, cupping your face in his hands .His lips are close but you know if you close the space, you won’t want to leave._
> 
> _“James… If I don’t-”_
> 
> _“No.” And his eyes are open now, and they’re fiery and it makes you just a little scared, enough to back away. “You’ll get out of here, get away. You’ll be safe. If nothing else, I need to hold onto that.”_
> 
> _He pause, blinks, as if he’s noticing the space between you for the first time. He gently takes one of your hands in his metal one, pulls you close, buries his face in your hair and breathes in._
> 
> _“And I’ll find you. I promise. If they capture me again, I’ll break free as many times as I need to. And when I’m free for good, I’ll find you.” He whispers in your ear._
> 
> _The two of you stand like that for a moment, and then Bucky pulls away from you, sits on the chair like you had explained to him. He waits._
> 
> _You take a deep gulp of air, and look at the man you love for what could be the last time._
> 
> _“Then let’s begin.”_

Hayden’s trying to scratch at the dam the entire plane ride back. She only meets resistance, which is funny considering your eyes are closed and your body is so relaxed you’re all but falling out of your seat. She asks questions; about some kind hydra (like the Greek myth, you think idly, but then the thought is gone and floating) and someone… some kind of soldier. She is only met with talk of Europe and the man named Giamo.

She stops, for a while. You know you’re out of the plane but then it all seems to melt as you keep hearing things about remembering and forgetting.

She won’t break the dam. None of them will. Only him.

That light in the other part of your mind is going out and the regular lights are coming back on.

Your eyes flutter open. You sit up on the couch and look over to your left. Hayden is sitting on an armchair slightly above your head. She looks at you, her expression concerned. She’s leaning forward.

“Is everything all right?” she asks. “You just… shot up suddenly.”

“I must have dozed off.” You tell her, trying to remember what you were doing before. You don’t remember lying on the couch. You don’t remember just shooting upright a second ago, either. You thought you moved a little slower than that, like a cat coming back to itself after a nap. You remember…

It doesn’t matter. It never does.


End file.
